Phoenix
by TB's LMC
Summary: When he wakes to do what only he can. Rating for language.


**Summary:** Danny POV when he wakes to do what only he can.

**PHOENIX**

I had only just fallen asleep. Not even quite asleep, really. Somewhere in that twilight space where you're still aware but not all there sort of asleep. I knew he was there, like how you know the pull-out is there because it's under you as a well-known fact, or like the door is physically, solidly there because it was the last time you opened it.

He stood in his usual pose, his usual half-stripped attire because only rain-soaked pants remained and somewhere in the back of my mind I wondered where the boots and shirt were. Everything but his legs were laid bare, as though he wasn't even conscious of the fact that most people wore some sort of shoes and shirt because of course, 'normal' is not something he can even wrap his head around at this point. Bulky arms folded over broad chest, but one arm held strangely, not quite as tightly as usual.

That was his right arm, whose shoulder had been dislocated until a few hours before, and the way he held it told of the pain he was in but stoically trying to hide. The scowl I am used to and can read. There are variations of the scowl, and this one was definitely slightly new, but no less easy to decipher. His eyes flicked to the door as though he might be expecting someone else to suddenly appear and I wondered briefly if it was something I should worry about, like some fucking insane Steve-honing criminal was onto him again.

But there was no one, and his eyes moved back to mine as I rolled out of bed and got as close as I dared to his personal space. When he was inside this place, this dark and lonely place, I had to tread lightly. To his credit, he didn't flinch, but I could feel the wall separating us as surely as if it were as visible as he. I could sense he wouldn't be speaking at all. He was here, though even if it got him everything he'd ever wished for he would never have admitted to it, simply because he needed me. On some level he was aware of it, but on every conscious level he was in serious denial.

Okay, fine by me, because I don't need to do anything more than touch him to control him, I learned that last time. And so when the palm of my hand lands on his left forearm, I feel the hitch in his breath shudder through his entire body. He feels hot; hotter than he should, and I wonder if it's the remnants of the dislocation or if he's really and truly feverish. Or maybe it's just me. He had said it the first night he'd come to me like this. Says it hurts when I touch him, but there are many levels of hurt.

While I've no doubt that to him it's a physical pain on the surface of it all and could easily be left to that interpretation and done with the entire thing, I know there are a lot more layers to the simple admission he'd made weeks ago. His eyes are piercing now because most of him wants to tear away from me and simply return to where he thinks he belongs, but the smallest part of him that was relearning 'human' and fighting with 'super soldier' keeps him rooted to the spot.

I tug on him because the one word I keep thinking over and over again in my mind is 'comfort,' and I know that's what he needs right now, and in a way only I can understand. I tug and then I have to pull and finally his arms come unfolded but it's another few seconds before he actually moves. I pull him back and know he has to be on the near side of the bed because his right arm shouldn't be moved very much right now and the mattress will support it. I pivot us so my ass is toward the bathroom and I move forward, causing him to take a step back until his calves are lined up with the mattress edge.

One more step forward from me and he slowly lowers himself to the bed, body held taut, completely controlled and painfully slow and coiled as though he might suddenly spring free from the moment and vault over my head, disappearing into the safety and utter solitude of his existence. But he doesn't spring, though he also doesn't relax, and when I feel certain he won't be vaulting anywhere, I pull my hand away. His relief is beyond apparent when his eyelids close briefly and his lips part just slightly and then I do see him relax just a little.

Quickly I move around the end of the bed to the other side. There are two pillows at the head of the bed, a discarded and abused pillow in the middle. He has not moved a muscle. I pull the pillow out of the middle of the bed, shoving it to the foot. I uncouple the two pillows near the sofa back and lay them side-by-side. It's pretty obvious by now that if I want him to actually lay down, I'm going to have to be the one to make it happen.

So I climb up on my knees and place my palms on his shoulders and feel him tense, becoming a solid wall as though he'd actually morphed from flesh and bone to brick and mortar. I pull him back toward me, all the while twisting him and it takes some strength because he's like a resistance band where the pull is meant to make you work for something you normally could handle quite naturally without it.

To his credit, he pulls his own legs up onto the mattress and situates his head in the center of the pillow. His eyes are opened wide and there's all this secret shit going on inside his mind as he stares at the ceiling. I want to ask him everything and nothing, knowing that speech is neither welcome nor really required but wishing I could see into that mind and find out what extreme, virulent and incomprehensible things he's thinking and asking and wondering and cursing.

But he won't look at me now and I know the fact that he's lying there in my bed, even though he's stiff with unyielding muscles and an even less pliant mind, is a monumental achievement. And I suddenly know this is how it's going to be with him. That I'm going to spend probably the rest of my life making one extremely tiny triumph seem more monolithic than me actually eating pizza with pineapple on it. That these miniscule victories will come so slowly I may have forgotten about the last one by the time the next one rolls around.

That I may live in continual frustration because it will be akin to pulling the tallest skyscraper down by removing one-inch cubic squares one at a time to break him down in my own personal boot camp. And rebuilding him after will require much smaller pieces be placed gently, carefully, with great precision. Like they're made from the finest paper-thin hand-blown glass in existence lest the progress puff out of my hand with nothing but the tiniest and most painful elegant shards left behind to show me he was ever really there at all.

And so this is how it's going to be, I know, as I stretch out next to him, leaving space between us and staring at the same ceiling I know his eyes aren't really seeing. I force myself to relax because if I'm tense, he'll remain rigid and that won't help either of us. As I close my eyes, the rhythm of his breathing becomes the loudest sound I can hear, and for just a few moments as I feel myself drifting off, I would swear I can feel his heart beating in time with mine. And then there's a twinge and I know it's leftover pain from his injury.

My hand flinches, because of its own volition it wants so badly to reach out and give the comfort of human touch. But my mind, you see, it knows that to him when he's living in this dark, dark hidden Steve place, the human touch is not something that brings joy. That he has no concept of tenderness or the healing that can come from even a small physical reminder that someone wants to be there for you in a way that's so deep it's as unfathomable as an abyss. And of course, especially my touch which somehow also causes him pain, and so I'm the last one who should even be thinking about it right now and my hand stills between us.

Next I'm aware of his heat, extraordinary like he is his own furnace and his personal thermostat thinks I'm cold and needs my bones warmed through and so it turns him up higher and hotter just to make me happy. It's perverse, but it's almost the way his mind would work and I know as I turn my head to look at him that he's allowed himself to relax as much as he can. His eyes are open, but unfocused. It's the look that tells me he's let his guard down, though in a nanosecond if attacked he would have the other person dead before they had a chance to wonder if he was even awake. But to me, here and now, it's a small step in the right direction and I know that we've made some progress here, that it's another tiny step toward stripping away everything he used to be that he can never tell me about.

I straighten my head and look back toward the ceiling again before closing my eyes and telling myself it's time to sleep. If I watch him, he'll bolt under the scrutiny. Refrains of a song drift through my mind, telling me I don't want to close my eyes or fall asleep because I don't want to miss a thing. But there won't be anything to miss tonight. He'll rest, though he won't sleep, and then he'll leave in the wee hours like he has both previous times. And at some point I'll sort of force myself to forget this like I always do and it'll just be totally normal again until the next time some shit from his past rears its ugly head and royally fucks him over. He'll show up in the wee hours again, totally walled-up and at the same time so completely vulnerable it's sobering and humbling that I'm the one seeing it.

The dance to raise the phoenix from the ashes will continue in its slow, controlled and sometimes very painful way. It's our dance. And it's fucking perfect.


End file.
